Ultracold environment offers a first look at a chemical reaction

Amazing stuff! This could be a breakthrough!

"In such intense cold — 500 nanokelvin, or just a few millionths of a degree above absolute zero — the molecules slowed to such sluggish speeds that Ni and her team saw something no one has ever seen before: the moment when two molecules meet to form two new molecules. In essence, they captured a chemical reaction in its most critical and elusive act."

"In her previous work, Ni used colder and colder temperatures to forge molecules from atoms that would otherwise never react. Cooled to such extremes, atoms and molecules slow to a quantum crawl, their lowest possible energy state. There, Ni can manipulate molecular interactions with utmost precision. But even she could only see the start of her reactions: Two molecules go in, but then what? What happened in the middle and the end was a black hole only theories could try to explain."

"Chemical reactions occur in just a thousandth of a billionth of a second, better known in the scientific world as a picosecond"

"the phase when bonds break and form — in essence, how one molecule turns into another"


Ultracold environment offers a first look at a chemical reaction – Harvard Gazette: Harvard researchers have performed the coldest reaction in the known universe by capturing a chemical reaction in its most critical and elusive act.